A primer on building a professional e-network

Reaching out to pals on Facebook is one thing. But do you know how to go about building a professional network online?

Reaching out to pals on Facebook is one thing. But do you know how to go about building a professional network online?

Carolyn Bigda, special to Tribune Newspapers

Reaching out to friends on Facebook may be second nature if you're a college student or recent grad. But when it comes to building a professional network on career sites such as LinkedIn, you may have to learn some finer points, say career experts.

There's no better time to learn those nuances too. The unemployment rate declined from 10 percent recently to 8.3 percent in January, but the rate for those age 25 to 29 remained 10.2 percent.

And networking remains one of the best ways to land a job.

"LinkedIn can be a very useful tool in the job search," said Barry Miller, manager of alumni career programs and services at Pace University. "But it's totally different from Facebook."

Don't talk to strangers

On Facebook, you might be willing to connect with friends from elementary school (whom you'll never see again). But on LinkedIn you want to build a network of colleagues and mentors you really want to stay in touch with and whom you can turn to throughout your career development.

Robert Hellmann, a career coach for the Five O'Clock Club, an outplacement firm and workplace coaching organization, remembers a client who was trying to use his LinkedIn network to arrange informational interviews. "We did a search of his network and what was coming up was a bunch of strangers," he said. "They weren't people he could reach out to and ask for a referral."

In other words, quantity should not be the aim. You want to focus on the quality of connections.

"It's much better to have a smaller network of people you can really count on," Hellmann said.

What if you get a request to connect from someone you don't know?

"Just ignore it," he said.

Personalize requests

When you're starting out, the easiest connections to make will likely be with friends, family, professors and past employers (say, from a part-time job or internship). When sending a request, you can pick from a list of default messages that LinkedIn provides (e.g., "I'd like to add you to my professional network"). For close acquaintances, impersonal notes are fine.

But if you're trying to build a relationship with, say, a recruiter you met during a career fair, you should punch it up a little. Write a personal note, reminding the recruiter of how you met and your interest in learning more about the industry or company.

"It's worth the extra five minutes to craft a message that feels personalized," said Krista Canfield, a career expert and spokesperson at LinkedIn.

Join groups

What if you want to connect with someone you don't know on LinkedIn, say, an alumnus who works at a company where you'd like to land a job?

One way to get connected is to ask for an introduction from someone in your network. But another solution — especially for younger workers without friends in high places — is to join a group on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn's groups are communities of people with similar affiliations (e.g., university alumni) or like-minded interests (say, green energy jobs). When you join a group you can participate in online discussions and send messages to other members, even if you're not connected.

"Those are great places to build your network outside of people you already know," Canfield said.

Stay in touch

If you're building your network correctly, you'll eventually have a group of people with whom you're interested in staying in touch. And an easy way to do that, says Five O'Clock's Hellmann, is to read the weekly email LinkedIn sends with updates on activity within your network.

"It's an unobtrusive way to keep in touch with your network," he said.

He added: "And if it's a real network, you'll actually read it because you'll want to know what everyone is doing."